Iranian, Syrian foreign ministers to visit Moscow this week

MOSCOW, Jan. 13 - Iranian and Syrian foreign ministers will visit Moscow later this week, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Monday.

"(Iran's Mohammad-) Javad Zarif and (Syria's) Walid al-Moallem are to visit Moscow on Jan. 16 and 17 respectively," the ministry press department said.

The two diplomats will hold talks with their Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov.

Lavrov, who held talks in Paris with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and joint special representative on Syrian issues Lakhdar Brahimi, said Monday that Iran should be invited to the Geneva-II conference on settling the Syrian crisis.

Kerry said he and Lavrov had discussed the possibility of a ceasefire in Syria ahead of the peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland, later this month.

Earlier on Monday, Iranian Ambassador to Russia Mehdi Sanaei told reporters that Zarif would discuss current international and regional event developments with Russian officials, including the ongoing situation in Syria and Iran's stance on the nuclear negotiations with the six world powers.